Links: Unexpected power and influence

Impostor/Abuser: Power Dynamics in Publishing by Sarah Gailey, via Captain Awkward.

But the day will come when you meet someone who idolizes you. Someone who thinks you can help them realize a dream. Someone whose life was changed by your work, who cares what you think, who cares what you do.

Even if you don’t see yourself as important, you will be important to that person. They will not know or care what your impostor syndrome tells you. No matter what that small, cruel voice tells you about yourself, you will still have the power to make that person feel small or scared or unsafe.

The yoga world is riddled with anti-vaxxers and QAnon believers by Cécile Guerin. "In my day job, I monitor the spread of online disinformation and conspiracy theories. I never expected to find them at my yoga class."

Stories! Identities out of the ordinary

Open 27 Hours by LP Kindred. Sensuous descriptions of food, and vivid descriptions of confusion and dislocation at the longest open soul food spot.

Southside Gods by Sarah Grey. "Within these lands, he is every plumber in the directory; he is all search results for toilet repair and leaking faucet. He is the alpha and omega of pipes, a small god of irrigation."

Both stories via bookgazing in ladybusiness.

I saw this on a poetry post outside a neighbor's house on a walk. You can also hear it read, I believe by the author.

"won't you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton
won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

Copyright © 1993 by Lucille Clifton in Book of Light.

It's a book!

I finally received my physical proof of Embodying Hope, delivered by UPS in the middle of a big snowstorm, and made the book officially available.

It is now available on Amazon. I will add a link to Powells when their database notices the book exists. You should be able to order it from your favorite local bookstore too.

I will add a buy button to my website as soon as I win my battle with Wordpress shopping carts. I keep having weird issues! I'm hoping to get that all settled tomorrow, after my morning walk in the snow.

I have ordered a couple of boxes of books, but I'm guessing they won't arrive for a couple of weeks.

Thank you all for reading my posts on the process and cheering me on, batdina especially! Your encouragement makes a difference. <3

It feels weird not to be able to show the physical book to other people. I held it up to the camera on Zoom and my fellow dancers were congratulatory, but it's not quite the same. Maybe if I show it to the friends I'm walking with tomorrow (in a socially distanced way), it will help affirm to my back brain that it's real.